SPORTS FEBRUARY 15, 2014

District wrestling tournaments held today will determine the qualifiers for the 2014 state individual wrestling championships in Des Moines next Thursday through Saturday. Burlington is hosting the area class 3A wrestling tournament, that’s where Mt. Pleasant will be wrestling against the Grayhounds, Bettendorf, Davnport West, Ft. Madison, Keokuk, Muscatine and Pleasant Valley. Bettendorf ranked #2 as a team and Pleasant Valley who is ranked 10th are expected to be hard to beat in many of the weight classes. MPHS sent 5 wrestlers to state last year, 3 of those wrestlers will be trying to repeat today. Tyler Lanphier, Josh Larson and Justin Dilks all have tough weight classes to get through to return to the big show. Dilks has lost only one match and is ranked 5th in his weight class, he placed 8th at state last year. Wrestling begins at noon.

Mediapolis the #1 ranked class 2A school in wrestling takes 12 wrestlers to the district with 4 ranked #1 in their weight classes at Fairfield. Albia also will be there and has a very strong team. Columbus Community-Winfield Mt. Union has 4 wrestlers trying to advance.

The class 1A district is at Wilton, New London has 3 wrestlers vying to go to state and Waco 1.

Class 3A Regional girl’s tournament play begins tonight. 4th ranked Mediapolis will open up tournament play at home against L&M KILJ-FM 105.5 and kilj.com will carry the game live beginning at 7 p.m., with a win they would advance to host either Central Lee or Mid Prairie who meet at Central Lee in the first round.

Class 2A Regional action today has Danville hosting West Burlington on February 15th and Wapello hosting Columbus Community. Iowa City Regina will play the Wapello-Columbus winner on the 18th of February. The Danville vs West Burlington winner goes to Highland for the next round.

The Washington Demon girls basketball team is making a late season run in the Southeast Conference, the Mt. Pleasant girl’s basketball team just the opposite. The Demons entered Panther Gym Friday night coming off a 1 point win over league leader Keokuk earlier in the week, this made it possible for the Panther girls to grab a share of the conference title if they beat Washington in the Parents Night game. What happened was Washington rolled to a 52-46 win and dashed the Panther title hopes. Taryne Shull scored 14 points to lead M.P. in scoring, Kelsi Phipps added 10. Mt. Pleasant ends the regular season 14-7 and 5-3 in the Southeast Conference. Keokuk stands in 1st place in the league at 6-2, Washington plays Ft. Madison next and with a win would tie for 2nd in the league with the Panthers.

Mt. Pleasant won the freshman game 35-29, dropped the JV contest 39-35. Mt. Pleasant will open tournament play at home next Saturday against either Ft. Madison or Keokuk.

The MPHS boy’s basketball team won at Washington 73-66, led by Trey Magnani with 24 points and Zach Mulford 16. M.P. led 36-27 at halftime, stretched the lead to 17 in the 3rd period before Washington made a late game charge and got back within 6 points before the Panthers sealed the win with good free throw shooting. Tuesday Mt. Pleasant 9-11 (3-5) closes out the regular season at non conference foe Marion.

The Freshman game was won by Mt. pleasant 52-46 in overtime, Dshundric Foster scored 16 and Brock Wilson 12. Frosh end the year 7-7.

The Iowa Wesleyan Tigers are encouraging fans to wear white for their game home games today against Blackburn College for a “White Out.” The women’s game tips off at 1:00pm with the men’s game to follow at 3:00pm.